Our last day in Krakow was another late start because of the necessity to check emails and do paperwork. We had chosen Wawel Castle as our must see so we made our way there arriving around 11:30. Walked up the hill to the ticket office and realized immediately that we were quite lucky that we are not in the high tourist season. A board outside the ticket office showed how many tickets were left for sale to each of the tours available. Had we been much later or had there been many more tourists in the city, we might have left Krakow without seeing one of the major sites. As it was, there were 138 tickets left for the Royal Apartments and it didn’t look like 138 tickets would be sold before it was our tour at the cashier. We are reading the signs as we are waiting in line and it also appears that each tour has a time stamp, you can’t enter the tour until your time arrives. We still felt we had time to do all the tours, Royal Apartments, State Apartments, Armory and Treasury, and an added bonus for 1 Zloty (about 30 cents) would be the Lost Wawel, an exhibition telling of lost items and history from the castle.
We get to the cashier and check to make sure the timing will allow us to get through a tour and make the next one in time. She assures us we will be fine. We get our tickets and make our way to the castle inner courtyard which is huge. There are fantastic drain spouts around the upper level. Also on the third level is a frieze but it is only a partial in that it covers one and ¼ walls. The courtyard isn’t too full of people waiting for their tours so we sit and relax for a few minutes until we see a large group of teens heading for the treasury and armory tour so we walk rapidly across the courtyard to beat them into the room. Yes, I admit it; we’d rather not have a bunch of chatty teens trying to do the same tour as we are doing.
The treasury and armory is very nice. There are some lovely gold pieces, some silver pieces, and again the weapons of destruction are remarkable in what people can do to each other. Two pieces in the armory stick out in my mind. One is armor like the one we saw in Gdansk that has feathers attached to the back. I’ve really got to look up and see why that is. The other piece was a tiny cannon mounted on a carriage that could be pulled behind a soldier. Yes, it was a cannon and destructive and capable of maiming or killing someone but immediately I got this picture in my mind of a huge hulking man pulling this tiny little bitty cannon behind him like some kid pulling a toy duck on a string.
The treasury and armory did not take too long so we were in plenty of time to go to the State Apartments for our next tour. On each of these tours we had to put our belonging through a security scan. Good thing I had thought to remove my pocket knife from my purse.
The State Apartments were full of tapestries and paintings and most rooms had a frieze around the ceiling. A lot of the topics were hunting for the friezes. A lot of the tapestries were dedicated to different scenes from the Bible, the most pervasive being scenes from the Great Flood and Noah and his Ark. The nicer tapestries had a great deal of detail in them and expression in the faces. Later we saw some tapestries that had been commissioned or purchased after the war for the reconstruction of the castle and they were not nearly as elaborate, elegant or detailed.
This castle had been destroyed and gutted at different times during its history, by the Swedes during a war, by the Nazis, by neglect. In all cases, the ceilings were usually left alone and didn’t need as much restoration. The ceilings were magnificent. Some had 8 or 9 layers dropping down to create boxes along the ceiling in which were gilt and gold leaf flowers. One room had 30 faces. This was another place where you were not allowed to take photos of the castle inside. I would have loved to photograph these faces as all of them were different, comical, humorous, serious, realistic, interesting, and representing characters possibly based on the people of the time.
We are finally done with the State Apartments and wait for our Royal Apartments tour. This tour is guided so we have to wait until exactly our appointed time and our guide comes. At first we are the only ones but 4 other people join us before we have gotten very far into the castle. She offers us a lot of history of the castle. She explains the difference in the tapestries that are original and the ones that are more recent. She also explains that because much of the treasure and furnishings of the castle have disappeared over the years, the Polish government and people have donated money to purchase furnishings that come up at auctions and private sales throughout Europe. So the Royal Apartments aren’t decorated so much as when the kings lived there but are more representative of the different styles of furnishings and architecture of the times of the kings.
We also got some history of the kings and how they became elected officials from the aristocracy, of which there were a lot in Poland. That explains how Augustus Ii of Dresden was able to come in and get elected king. We’d heard his story in Dresden. At one point they also had an Italian queen who brought a lot of Renaissance style in clothing and furniture and decorations to the Wawel. It was a very nice tour.
At the end, we got some hot dogs for lunch. There came with a bun and were more grilled than boiled so tasty. We now have the Lost Wawel and also the Cathedral for which we need to get additional tickets. Decided that the Cathedral probably was well worth a visit so we went to get tickets. As soon as I had the tickets in my hand, a young man says to me, step to the rear booth. Momentary shades of secret police and such as I couldn’t figure out what I had done to be made to go to the rear of the building. But they were just trying to sell me the audio guided tour. In the end, we got the audio guided tour and it was good at pointing out the main treasures in the cathedral and directing us from place to place to see the main treasures and caskets and monuments to saints and kings.
Our groups of teenagers were in the cathedral by this time and being allowed to take photos but as they are all locals, we obeyed the rules of no photos. We had gotten to the tour point where we were to climb 70 steps to go to the bell tower and see their famous bell when the teenagers started flowing into the small room like a crashing wave. We abandoned the ascent and went to the other chapels instead. We returned to the bell tower later and it is lucky that we had not tried to go up with the teenagers. It was a very narrow set of stairs, very steep, tight turns, and very little room at the top where you could view the bell. Coming down was more difficult because you could smack your head on the lower bell if you weren’t careful.
We now have left the lower crypts and we are there during the teenager invasion so we had to wait for their guide to explain it all to them. Being teenagers, only half of them, if that, were paying attention. They others were sitting on the stairs, lolling on the gates, chatting with each other, taking funny pictures in front of the caskets when they thought no one was looking.
Leaving the cathedral, we make our way over to see the Lost Wawel and alas, it is too late. We have missed it and will never know what was lost and what was found or hope to be found.
Wawel Castle has a dragon history. We have been looking all over the castle for the dragon but it isn’t anywhere. We did hear Prince Krak had killed the dragon finally by feeding it empty cow skins stuffed with sulfur. There is one last chance to find the dragon. There is a cave below the castle called the Dragon’s Den so we made our way to the cave only to see that we needed tickets for it also and needed to purchase them from a machine that accepted coins only. It was only 3 Zlotys each but we didn’t have it and there are only 15 minutes left to get into the den. I ran back to a souvenir shop, bought the cheapest post card I could find and got the required change.
The den’s entrance is down a spiral staircase inside one of the castle wall towers. On reaching the bottom, you are in a large cave. The cave wanders for maybe 100 meters and then you exit be the river. The cave is not so much. It is still a living cave so we water dripped on us several times as we walked through. On exiting, as we climb the steps – there it is! The Dragon! Finally! Huzzah! And as we come up the stairs, it spouts fire! Oh what a lovely dragon. There are dragon toys and statues and medallions everywhere so we were quite thankful to finally find it.
As we left the dragons den, we were attacked, figuratively. We had not even put our feet onto the top step when a young lady approached us to take a tour on the river for ½ hour. She explained what we would see and how nice the weather was and how calm the river was. Sounded like a good thing so we waited for the dragon to spout fire again to get a photo and then followed her to the boat. We were the only customers so we had a boat to ourselves and went downriver for a bit where we saw a lot of kayakers and rowers or people crewing sculls. Then back upstream past the castle to where the tourist balloon rises. Saw the river side of several nice churches along the way. That pretty much ended our touring of Krakow. Once again, not enough time for everything. Too many wonderful things to see and visit. Now on to Warsaw.
We get to the cashier and check to make sure the timing will allow us to get through a tour and make the next one in time. She assures us we will be fine. We get our tickets and make our way to the castle inner courtyard which is huge. There are fantastic drain spouts around the upper level. Also on the third level is a frieze but it is only a partial in that it covers one and ¼ walls. The courtyard isn’t too full of people waiting for their tours so we sit and relax for a few minutes until we see a large group of teens heading for the treasury and armory tour so we walk rapidly across the courtyard to beat them into the room. Yes, I admit it; we’d rather not have a bunch of chatty teens trying to do the same tour as we are doing.
The treasury and armory is very nice. There are some lovely gold pieces, some silver pieces, and again the weapons of destruction are remarkable in what people can do to each other. Two pieces in the armory stick out in my mind. One is armor like the one we saw in Gdansk that has feathers attached to the back. I’ve really got to look up and see why that is. The other piece was a tiny cannon mounted on a carriage that could be pulled behind a soldier. Yes, it was a cannon and destructive and capable of maiming or killing someone but immediately I got this picture in my mind of a huge hulking man pulling this tiny little bitty cannon behind him like some kid pulling a toy duck on a string.
The treasury and armory did not take too long so we were in plenty of time to go to the State Apartments for our next tour. On each of these tours we had to put our belonging through a security scan. Good thing I had thought to remove my pocket knife from my purse.
The State Apartments were full of tapestries and paintings and most rooms had a frieze around the ceiling. A lot of the topics were hunting for the friezes. A lot of the tapestries were dedicated to different scenes from the Bible, the most pervasive being scenes from the Great Flood and Noah and his Ark. The nicer tapestries had a great deal of detail in them and expression in the faces. Later we saw some tapestries that had been commissioned or purchased after the war for the reconstruction of the castle and they were not nearly as elaborate, elegant or detailed.
This castle had been destroyed and gutted at different times during its history, by the Swedes during a war, by the Nazis, by neglect. In all cases, the ceilings were usually left alone and didn’t need as much restoration. The ceilings were magnificent. Some had 8 or 9 layers dropping down to create boxes along the ceiling in which were gilt and gold leaf flowers. One room had 30 faces. This was another place where you were not allowed to take photos of the castle inside. I would have loved to photograph these faces as all of them were different, comical, humorous, serious, realistic, interesting, and representing characters possibly based on the people of the time.
We are finally done with the State Apartments and wait for our Royal Apartments tour. This tour is guided so we have to wait until exactly our appointed time and our guide comes. At first we are the only ones but 4 other people join us before we have gotten very far into the castle. She offers us a lot of history of the castle. She explains the difference in the tapestries that are original and the ones that are more recent. She also explains that because much of the treasure and furnishings of the castle have disappeared over the years, the Polish government and people have donated money to purchase furnishings that come up at auctions and private sales throughout Europe. So the Royal Apartments aren’t decorated so much as when the kings lived there but are more representative of the different styles of furnishings and architecture of the times of the kings.
We also got some history of the kings and how they became elected officials from the aristocracy, of which there were a lot in Poland. That explains how Augustus Ii of Dresden was able to come in and get elected king. We’d heard his story in Dresden. At one point they also had an Italian queen who brought a lot of Renaissance style in clothing and furniture and decorations to the Wawel. It was a very nice tour.
At the end, we got some hot dogs for lunch. There came with a bun and were more grilled than boiled so tasty. We now have the Lost Wawel and also the Cathedral for which we need to get additional tickets. Decided that the Cathedral probably was well worth a visit so we went to get tickets. As soon as I had the tickets in my hand, a young man says to me, step to the rear booth. Momentary shades of secret police and such as I couldn’t figure out what I had done to be made to go to the rear of the building. But they were just trying to sell me the audio guided tour. In the end, we got the audio guided tour and it was good at pointing out the main treasures in the cathedral and directing us from place to place to see the main treasures and caskets and monuments to saints and kings.
Our groups of teenagers were in the cathedral by this time and being allowed to take photos but as they are all locals, we obeyed the rules of no photos. We had gotten to the tour point where we were to climb 70 steps to go to the bell tower and see their famous bell when the teenagers started flowing into the small room like a crashing wave. We abandoned the ascent and went to the other chapels instead. We returned to the bell tower later and it is lucky that we had not tried to go up with the teenagers. It was a very narrow set of stairs, very steep, tight turns, and very little room at the top where you could view the bell. Coming down was more difficult because you could smack your head on the lower bell if you weren’t careful.
We now have left the lower crypts and we are there during the teenager invasion so we had to wait for their guide to explain it all to them. Being teenagers, only half of them, if that, were paying attention. They others were sitting on the stairs, lolling on the gates, chatting with each other, taking funny pictures in front of the caskets when they thought no one was looking.
Leaving the cathedral, we make our way over to see the Lost Wawel and alas, it is too late. We have missed it and will never know what was lost and what was found or hope to be found.
Wawel Castle has a dragon history. We have been looking all over the castle for the dragon but it isn’t anywhere. We did hear Prince Krak had killed the dragon finally by feeding it empty cow skins stuffed with sulfur. There is one last chance to find the dragon. There is a cave below the castle called the Dragon’s Den so we made our way to the cave only to see that we needed tickets for it also and needed to purchase them from a machine that accepted coins only. It was only 3 Zlotys each but we didn’t have it and there are only 15 minutes left to get into the den. I ran back to a souvenir shop, bought the cheapest post card I could find and got the required change.
The den’s entrance is down a spiral staircase inside one of the castle wall towers. On reaching the bottom, you are in a large cave. The cave wanders for maybe 100 meters and then you exit be the river. The cave is not so much. It is still a living cave so we water dripped on us several times as we walked through. On exiting, as we climb the steps – there it is! The Dragon! Finally! Huzzah! And as we come up the stairs, it spouts fire! Oh what a lovely dragon. There are dragon toys and statues and medallions everywhere so we were quite thankful to finally find it.
As we left the dragons den, we were attacked, figuratively. We had not even put our feet onto the top step when a young lady approached us to take a tour on the river for ½ hour. She explained what we would see and how nice the weather was and how calm the river was. Sounded like a good thing so we waited for the dragon to spout fire again to get a photo and then followed her to the boat. We were the only customers so we had a boat to ourselves and went downriver for a bit where we saw a lot of kayakers and rowers or people crewing sculls. Then back upstream past the castle to where the tourist balloon rises. Saw the river side of several nice churches along the way. That pretty much ended our touring of Krakow. Once again, not enough time for everything. Too many wonderful things to see and visit. Now on to Warsaw.
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